


Golden Veins

by achieve_k



Series: Fire and Gold [2]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Drug Addiction, Drug Use, FAHC, Fake AH Crew, GTA V - au, Hurt/Comfort, Other, rich boy gavin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:22:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28341600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/achieve_k/pseuds/achieve_k
Summary: Since the prison break where Jeremy found family, things with the Fakes have been non-stop.But something's been bothering Gavin, and he finds himself determined to find out just what's got the Golden Boy so dull.
Relationships: Gavin Free & Geoff Ramsey, Gavin Free/Geoff Ramsey, Jeremy Dooley & Gavin Free, Jeremy Dooley/Gavin Free
Series: Fire and Gold [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2075433
Comments: 1
Kudos: 22





	1. I Have Nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> TW: drug abuse, addiction, overdose
> 
> hi all <3
> 
> got a little insp and decided to write up a little back story for the Golden Boy from my Fire and Gold fic! hope you enjoy, I might even try doing one of these for the whole crew if anyone's interested!
> 
> happy reading! kudos and comments massively appreciated x

“You’re supposed to be dead.”

Jeremy had expected his first official job with the Fakes to be some small time shit; or, as small as it got for _them_ anyway. But no. Instead, Ramsey had thrown him right in the deep end just weeks after their escape from prison and he wasn’t exactly in the best position to decline.

While Gavin had been away (and presumed to be gone forever by pretty much everybody besides conspiracy theorists), Geoff had apparently experienced a serious upturn in pricing from some of his previously most trusted suppliers. Without the threat of the Golden Boy and everything that he knew, fear tactics could not hold such strength as they used to. The Fakes’ most reliable arms dealer had started to make some outlandish demands. Blinded by a new power, he had charged upwards of triple his typical take from them, leaving Ramsey with no choice but to cough up the cash or run the risk of turning elsewhere and being taken for even more of a fool than this guy wanted to make him believe he had become. It was insulting. It was downright disrespectful. And with his power restored, Geoff simply wasn’t about to let it slide.

So here they were. On a revenge mission with one of the biggest hitters in the illegal weapons trade. Hardly a soft initiation, but if anything Jeremy could at least be glad to have Michael alongside him. Sending two new recruits along to something so intense might have seemed like a rather bad play on Geoff’s part, but as far as he was concerned, there was little point in having them if they weren’t cut out for the big leagues.

Besides, it wasn’t like they were alone.

“They said you were _dead_ ,” the arms dealer said again, the colour drained from his face now as the air inside their abandoned warehouse meeting spot seemed to turn colder.

“And yet, here I am,” Gavin sauntered to his seat, set up opposite the quivering mess of a men. Jeremy and Michael stood firm at his back. Glorified guard dogs, but it wasn’t as though their opponent didn’t have a similar entourage of his own. There were more of them, with more weapons, but found himself unconcerned by their outweighed odds. The Fakes had _no_ blood to spare. “Spooky, isn’t it?”

Gavin allowed the silence to hang in the air, seemed to enjoy the oppressive atmosphere he had created in the room. It was a surprise to everyone that the next time he tried to speak, he was interrupted.

“You are not what you used to be.” The man told him, and despite the slight waver in his voice he was regaining his pride. After the initial shock of Gavin’s presence had shot through him, he seemed to remember who he was and what surrounded him. An empire of weaponry, an army of terrified if not loyal guards; enough for a man to stand on, even when faced with a perpetual fall. “Where did they keep you, Golden Boy? Chained up with the dogs?”

There was a smooth, sly nature about Gavin that was undeniably uncomfortable. He was warm and conniving, too friendly, too open. Everything about him sang in a teasing tone _‘I know something you don’t know’_ , and that cheeky nature in the right context was enough to make most crumble under nervousness and worry.

That was gone now. He was cold. Unmoving, unsmiling, _unfeeling_. It was undoubtedly worse.

When Gavin smiled, you knew to be on edge. When he didn’t, well that could mean anything at all.

The laughter of the man’s guards fell and died on the floor. That silence was back, and this time it was all-consuming. Where he once had been cocky and certain, the arms dealer shifted uncomfortably like he wasn’t sure how to sit in his seat.

“This really is a shame.” Gavin said, without an ounce of emotion in his voice. Jeremy imagined how he might have said that had the man not opened his stupid fucking mouth. With a deep and genuine frown, leaning forwards as though he might reach out a hand and comfort him. His typical oddly inviting nature was off-putting certainly but this harsh, distant version of Gavin was so much worse. “For a while there, I thought we might have had something… special.”

Without a clue how to respond to a Gavin he had never seen before, the man folded his arms defensively. “My deals with you and your crew are exactly as they were.”

Gavin frowned. “Do you take me for a fucking idiot?” _That_ certainly got the attention of the room. Even Michael and Jeremy couldn’t stop a physical reaction to hearing Gavin curse. This guy must have really gotten under his skin with that comment, and Jeremy supposed it made sense. As far as he was aware, Gavin hadn’t really talked to anybody at all about his year in isolation, how he was treated or what he was told. There was probably a lot to unpack there… but _Gavin_ and _honesty_ didn’t often go hand in hand. Whoever he eventually opened up to about it might not make it out alive.

Regardless, fingers were twitching over triggers now.

The arms dealer shrugged, keeping his wits about him but that tough exterior wall was crumbling. “Money was tight. I am happy to re-negotiate.”

“I’m glad you’re happy.” Gavin said, quite abruptly. “It makes this much easier for me. Though you’ll have to bear with me, I’m new to this,” as though it had never left, that famously sly smile crept its way back onto his face. “I’ve never negotiated with a corpse before.”

The threat was called and weapons were raised, but none could pull a trigger faster than Alfredo, who made his appearance by Michael’s back at exactly the right second. They had kept him hidden for negotiation purposes. Ramsey’s ultimate aim for this meeting had been to knock a scare into them sure, but walk away with no lives lost and the old prices secured. Bringing Diaz to this meeting was like bringing a gun to a knife fight.

He had tagged along anyway in case things got messy, and thank God that he did.

His bullet hit the mark perfectly between the arms dealer’s eyes. The body slumped back. Unceremoniously dead.

Unarmed, Gavin sprung to his feet to take cover behind his crew. The ensuing gun battle was short lived, because although they may have been outnumbered, the Fakes had Alfredo. He was a near perfect shot, Michael wasn’t so bad himself and Jeremy… well, Jeremy just fired until his weapon emptied. Desperately trying not to think too much about the fact he was aiming at real people, with lives outside of this warehouse. It hadn’t gotten any easier to watch men die on bullets he had fired. In fact, the sight of it still made him feel just a little bit dizzy.

_‘What’s going on?’_ Matt’s voice sounded over their intercoms, and Jeremy had never been happier to hear it. It reminded him of why he was here, who he was shooting for.

“We’re fine,” he said to his own earpiece, watching Michael point his gun at the lone survivor of the dealers’ gang.

“Stand down,” Gavin scolded, swatting Michael’s weapon away with an indignant frown. The red head was deeply displeased with this, turning a short-tempered glare his way before he remembered just who he was looking at and straightened himself back in line. “One survivor. Or else who knows what happened here?”

Still frustrated, still practically vibrating with a lust for further bloodshed, Michael watched the lone arms dealer scrambling away. That look in his eyes… Jeremy had never seen it before, but it was overwhelming. Gavin noticed it too, and admired it, as though he found murderous intent to be quite becoming on Michael.

“That was pretty fuckin’ wild Michael,” Alfredo nodded to him with a genuinely impressed smile on his face, and Michael was somewhat placated by it if not entirely calmed. “You’re definitely with me on the next heist.”

“We’re leaving, Matt,” Gavin said over the intercom, and by the time Jeremy turned to face him he was already halfway across the warehouse heading for the doors. “Don’t make me wait. I’m in a foul mood already.” The tell-tale sound of an engine revving in their earpieces assured them that Matt wouldn’t need to be told twice. The hit was successful, if not entirely as they had planned it, but the silence in the room and the way that Gavin hadn’t stopped to look back at them left Jeremy uncertain of himself.

“Gav,” Alfredo said firmly, and though Gavin didn’t give them his full attention, it did stop him. “You know Geoff’s gonna be pissed about this.”

“You took the shot.” He bit back. It was a venomous tone and a childish retort, which was altogether wrong coming from someone so typically sharp and quick-witted. Notoriously silver-tongued, he was flailing. Something had slipped uncomfortably under his skin and left him all out of shape.

“On _your_ call,” Alfredo frowned. “Like I promised I would.”

A poignant pause while Gavin chewed over that. “I know.” He said, and carried on towards the doors. Putting a decided end to that line of conversation with silent dismissal that Jeremy was surprised to see Alfredo accept. “I’ll find us something better.”

It took a moment for Alfredo to follow after him, Jeremy and Michael falling in line at his back. “You’ll have to.” He added, and for once Gavin let him have the last word, though it didn’t seem to make anyone any happier.

\---

Gavin Free.

What a fucking enigma.

Jeremy watched him, flitting through hundred dollar bills in the passenger seat of his car, socked feet propped up on the centre console with his black designer boots discarded beneath him. Yawning, relaxed, holding stacks of cash in his lap and ignoring the ones that rolled onto the floor. Gavin was so well acquainted with money, you would think that he’d had it all his life. And perhaps he had. It never occurred to Jeremy to actually ask him (or any of the crew for that matter) about his past; but damn if he wasn’t curious.

Maybe more so than anybody else he had ever met in his life, Gavin stood out as a mysterious curiosity to Jeremy. He held secrets in the palm of his hand, rolled them like dice. Barely a week spent outside of his prison cell and he knew more about Jeremy than he had ever knowingly divulged. Gavin had an innate ability to make every word he spoke heavy with a warning, a threat or a promise.

Then at the same time, he used golden glitter bath bombs and complained over the sparkles in his hair. He asked stupid hypothetical questions every five minutes and used dumb British expressions that Jeremy was just barely beginning to comprehend. He spent five hundred dollars on a new pair of golden aviators and snapped them the very same day picking play fights with the crew; all of whom could overpower with minimal effort, which he knew of course. Gavin slept in, never shut up and sometimes disappeared over night only to return with an iced coffee and a brand new perspective on whatever it was that they needed to know this time around.

So Gavin Free was many things. All of them mismatching, none of them small nor quiet.

The next time Jeremy spared him a glance, as he parked up in the garage just beside a beat up chrome Adder that Michael had been fixing up, Gavin was snorting a line off a little gold strip.

“Who the fuck _are_ you man,” Jeremy laughed. He’d said it mostly to himself, but Gavin gave him a sly grin and an even cheekier response.

“Ask me again when this hits, and I might even tell ya.”

\---

On the morning of their biggest job since the prison break, everybody was understandably jittery.

The Fakes didn’t often pull bank heists anymore but the introduction of three new recruits definitely encouraged them to go back to their roots. It was actually a gentler initiation heist than Jeremy had expected, though that wasn’t to say he thought this was going to be _easy_ by any means.

He was proven right by their very first roadblock, coming at the ass crack of dawn to rain on their parade.

“Fuck,” Matt muttered under his breath, tapping away on a laptop and doing God knows what, but Jeremy figured that it was probably important.

“What?” He questioned. Immediately, Jeremy had abandoned the loading of weapons to peer over Matt’s shoulder. Numbers, letters, symbols flooded his screen and all of it didn’t mean shit to Jeremy. He was about as useful as Michael, who was dead asleep on the couch beside them, but seeing Matt exhibit any signs of stress always activated a response in him. Emotional support.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Matt was mumbling, smashing the keys like his whole life depended on it.

“ _What_?” Jeremy pressed.

“The alarm system.” Matt sighed, pushing away his laptop to fish through his surrounding papers as though looking for some kind of answer. “They must have detected it when I tested their security, I- I don’t know what to do here.” Back to his laptop, like the code might have cracked itself while he was gone. “Oh I’m so fucked. I can’t break this, not by tonight.”

“Relax,” an unhelpful comment, he would admit, but one of them had to keep a cool head right now and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be Matt by the looks of things. Plus, he already had an idea of what they could do here. “Who could fix it?” He asked, though they both already knew.

Matt turned an uncertain frown on him before he spoke. “Probably Gavin.” Jeremy smiled in response but Matt’s frown didn’t budge. “What are you, crazy?”

“Shit, probably,” Jeremy laughed.

“I’m serious. Don’t wake him up.”

The silence turned sour between them while Jeremy waited for the punchline. He was ready for Matt to break into a smile, laugh right along with him at the ridiculousness of this, but his friend’s face was grave and unchanging. Gavin’s rest was apparently of deadly, paramount importance to him; and frankly, it was hilarious.

“Come on,” Jeremy couldn’t hold in his chuckles as he rose from the couch. “If you’re that afraid of him, _I’ll_ wake the dragon.”

“Jeremy-“ Matt was warning him, but Michael’s voice caught them both off guard then.

“I wouldn’t.” He said, voice thick with the remnants of his deep slumber. “Not without a peace offering, at least.”

So that was how Jeremy found himself fetching coffee for the Golden Boy at seven in the goddamn morning.

He had insisted on skipping this bullshit but Michael and Matt had practically pushed him out the front door leaving no room for refusal. The two of them were so damn serious about it that Jeremy had almost started to believe Gavin really would gouge out his eyes if he woke him up without a care, but there was still a much greater part of him convinced that his two closest friends were simply doing what they did best; being total assholes. They directed him to a Starbucks where the manager knew exactly who they were but wouldn’t squeal. Michael texted him the order. He had been playing coffee boy for the crew ever since his recruitment, an odd kind of punishment for his recklessness in the prison fire, so Jeremy trusted that he knew the specifications of Gavin’s coffee to a tee.

**Michael:** grande iced white mocha, two pumps of vanilla syrup, one extra shot of espresso. make sure they don’t skimp on the ice. and no writing on the cup.

Jeremy scoffed, rolling his eyes and _knowing_ this couldn’t be serious.

**Michael:** NO sugar free shit. that part’s important.

Holy shit, it _was_ serious.

“Can I help you?” A tired server pulled Jeremy’s attention away from his phone, and he genuinely started to feel a little… nervous? The worry crept into his wavering tone before he could stop it. Gavin was going to rip him apart.

“Uh y-yeah, I…” Jeremy glanced back at his phone for the answers. Wiping down sweaty palms on his jeans, he tried to remind himself that he was a member of the most notorious criminal gang in the city and he was ordering a fucking _coffee_. Jeremy recited the first part of Gavin’s order without interruption.

“What’s the name?” The server asked, utterly uninterested as he tapped all the details into the register and grabbed for the appropriate sized cup.

“It’s J-“ he started impulsively, but hit a hard pause when he remembered. “Wait no- no name.” Noticing that his server didn’t know what the fuck to do with that, he continued. “I mean, it’s Jeremy. But don’t write it. No writing on the cup, please my uh… boss doesn’t like it.”

The server paused and raised his eyebrow, like he was waiting for Jeremy to crack a joke; but thankfully, he just nodded and said: “Sorry that your boss is an asshole.”

When he was presented with the glorious prize, Jeremy found his heartbeat felt faster than it had in any heist he’d ever pulled.

\---

Jeremy had never been into Gavin’s room before, but he found that it looked much as he would have expected it to. If anything, he might have predicted a touch more gold. The scattered coffee cups and three different cell phones on his desk came as no surprise, as did the sheer amount of expensive clothing littering the floor. At the very centre of the room on the largest bed Jeremy had ever seen in his life, Gavin was dead asleep atop the sheets. Still and silent, wearing nothing but some dark boxer shorts and a black silk shirt, unbuttoned. Even the rise and fall of his chest was miniscule. Almost as vulnerable as he had looked in his cell all that time ago.

Almost.

Before he could talk himself out of it, Jeremy approached with the caution of a lion tamer. The slither of light creeping in through the open door behind him caught Gavin’s face, making his expression twitch into a frown; not that he had appeared particularly peaceful in the first place. He shifted a little in place. His eyes quivered, but didn’t open. Jeremy took a stabilising breath and reached out to press a hand against his shoulder. And as he went to shake him, call out his name, Gavin was springing from the bed with wide open eyes and pressing the barrel of a golden gun right between his eyes.

Somehow, Jeremy kept his grip on the fateful promised coffee cup.

“Gav!” He cried out, stepping back and raising a hand in defence. “It’s me – it’s just me. You’re okay.”

Gavin kept his weapon raised, carried on staring at Jeremy through bloodshot eyes, observing him as though he might be somebody else. He stayed there just long enough for Jeremy to notice the shaking in his hands. The way that his finger twitched over the trigger made Jeremy’s blood run cold.

“Coffee,” Gavin said, voice rough from sleep as he lowered his gun. The way that he still lightly squeezed that trigger did not go unnoticed.

“What the _fuck,_ Gav?” Jeremy frowned. He was full of an angry type of disbelief, waiting on an apology for such an intensely reckless display, but when he finally pulled his attention away from the gun and his eyes fell upon Gavin’s, he suddenly didn’t know what to feel.

That damn insistent light creeping in from the doorway had caught Gavin’s face in just the right way for Jeremy to notice the wetness pooling beneath his eyes.

Tears.

Not for the first time since he had been with the Fakes, but perhaps more intensely now than ever before, Jeremy was totally out of his depth here.

“Jeremy,” Gavin breathed, and clearly cursed the painful crack in his voice. “ _Coffee_.”

Though he barely even remembered he was holding it, Jeremy’s body moved on autopilot to hand over his peace offering and Gavin snatched it eagerly. The tremors in his hands were so obvious now, accentuated by the clattering of ice cubes in his cup as he rose from the bed in a miserable huff. While Gavin dressed himself to a degree of decency, Jeremy pondered over what the fuck he could do to recover from this.

Had it been Matt or Michael, hell maybe even _Geoff_ at this point, Jeremy figured he would probably have an idea of what to do. He could comfort. Console. Reach out and dig deeper. Find the route of the problem and figure it out. He could play confidant and shoulder to cry on all day long for just about anybody in the crew, and support them through to the other side of whatever rut they’d found themselves stuck in.

But Jeremy had never even seen Gavin _dishevelled_ so much as _crying_. This man, who he had carried from his cage inside a burning building, had hardly even blinked at the prospect of his death in there. Gavin had spoken soft and menacing words to him while the world turned to ash around them, seemingly unperturbed by their imminent doom; and not only that, he’d been on his feet and laughing not even hours afterwards. If it weren’t for the soot and ash on his skin, Jeremy would have believed Gavin was never even there in the first place and he had simply imagined the entire thing.

He had never seen anything shake the Golden Boy, and now he was a trembling mess mere feet away. Jeremy was wholly unprepared for this, and he knew he had to tread carefully.

“What’s going on, Gav?” He probed, pressing his mouth into a thin line when Gavin turned a veiled smile his way.

He took a long sip from his straw before he answered. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to.” As far as Gavin was concerned judging by how rapidly he diverted his attention elsewhere, that seemed to be the end of the discussion. The light from the phone he had grabbed only just illuminated his face when Jeremy decided to press harder.

“I’m not.” He insisted. To make it very clear that he didn’t plan on leaving without answers, Jeremy perched comfortably on the end of Gavin’s bed and tried not to flinch at his resulting scoff. “And I’m not going anywhere ‘til you tell me. So start talking.”

Gavin laughed, but it was a humourless sound. “This is leaps above your pay grade, J.”

“Jesus Gavin, I’m not asking you as your _colleague_.”

“What then?” He said, tone a little harsher now in a way that gave too much away. It was honestly quite a thrilling moment when Jeremy realised that he knew exactly what play Gavin was presenting here. He had never been able to get a read on him like this before, but in his tired and distressed state, it was painfully obvious what Gavin’s end goal was. “As a _friend_? Don’t flatter yourself.”

“You can bite back at me all you want Gav. I’m not getting mad at you, and I’m not leaving, so why don’t we skip the part where you try to make me go away?”

He was blank for a moment, but Gavin couldn’t quite supress the small pout that made its way onto his face. There was something in that expression that told Jeremy he was quite impressed, too. “Have I lost my touch?” He asked, flopping down in a huff onto his plush desk chair. “Works on Michael...”

Jeremy smiled, albeit sadly. “Not on me.”

There was an uncomfortably long silence then, something Jeremy found it nauseating to exist within but he knew Gavin would try anything he could to push him out before he had to speak honestly for once. He had to stick it out for his friend. That much Jeremy was confident he could do. When Gavin finally sighed, the relief was overwhelming. It still took him a moment to open up, but it was a start. No going back on it now. He was going to speak truthfully, and Jeremy was bound to listen.

“I have nightmares.” Gavin said at last. There was something horribly playful in his voice, like he might have been joking, but Jeremy could guess why. Nightmares? It sounded so juvenile and he didn’t doubt Gavin’s humiliation to admit it.

But that frenzied look in his eyes when he had levelled a gun at Jeremy’s head mere moments ago? There was nothing childish about that. That was raw, genuine fear.

“What about?” Jeremy asked before he properly considered whether or not he wanted to know. Ignoring every instinct in his body, he maintained firm eye contact with Gavin, who was too still for the tension in the room.

It was Gavin who broke their gaze. His cool expression faltered, and Jeremy knew that he had looked away because he couldn’t bear the thought of being this vulnerable with company. “What do you suppose they can do in jail to a man who the whole world believes is already dead?” The shaking in his hands had become so distracting, Gavin set down his coffee and braced himself against the desk. Jeremy wasn’t sure if he was supposed to respond but he didn’t have the words for it anyway. “What lengths do you think they would go to for information?” His face twisted into a horribly bitter imitation of a smile. “From the man with more secrets than anyone else in the world?”

There were a thousand thoughts flushing Jeremy’s mind, each more terrible than the last. When he had first met Gavin, locked away in a cage with nothing but a bed, how had he not known it then? What had he missed? So focused on that faded scarring across his face, Jeremy dreaded to think about the things he might _not_ have seen. Bruises, cuts, scars that hadn’t been caused by the flames. His one golden eye… had it ever been Michael’s fault at all? When they had carried him out of the blaze that day, why didn’t Jeremy take note of just how feather light he had been? How pale, tired he had looked? What more had Gavin been through in there than what they could physically see? Sick to his stomach, Jeremy had to wonder if anyone would ever know, or if it would live with him forever untold.

“I can’t go back there Jeremy.” Gavin said, abruptly cutting off his manic train of thought, which honestly Jeremy felt quite grateful for. Those were dark places that he had never been to and had no desire of visiting even in thought. The next time Jeremy felt attached to the world, Gavin was staring right at him with something like desperation in his eyes. “Not ever.”

In that moment, it felt like Gavin was telling him about something much more than a nightmare. He was _terrified_ , and nobody outside of this room knew it. Michael and Matt had warned him against coming here at all, utterly convinced that Gavin was a force to be reckoned with over an early morning wake up call, but the truth was that he was _afraid_ of being seen like this. Vulnerable. Which was worse, in a lot of ways, than what Jeremy had been expecting.

And as Gavin pleaded with him, Jeremy experienced that same compulsion he’d had to keep Michael alive in the prison break, something feral that he had never felt before up until that moment, and never again since until now. “I won’t let you.” He said, and he meant it with every bone in his body and every breath that he took. “I promise _, we_ won’t let that happen to you again.”

The fear was ever-present in his eyes, but that did make Gavin smile. It was the more genuine grin that used to make Jeremy squirm, but now he knew it was meant for him, it was comforting in a way that he couldn’t describe. “I know that’s what you believe. I’m glad. I hope you’ll forgive that I don’t.” That certainly left Jeremy confounded. “I’ve believed it before, and I was wrong to. I _never_ make the same mistake twice.”

It sounded so heavy that Jeremy had to think twice on what exactly Gavin was telling him here. If he missed the point of this then he had a feeling that he wouldn’t get to see Gavin quite this open ever again, and that simply was not an option. Gavin _needed_ an outlet, and by circumstance or maybe some sense of duty, it had to be Jeremy.

_“You took the shot.”_

_“On your call,” Alfredo frowned. “Like I promised I would.”_

_A poignant pause while Gavin chewed over that. “I know.” He said, and carried on towards the doors._

“Fredo,” Jeremy said at the memory of another promise Gavin might have given up on. “You… blame him? For letting them take you in?”

Gavin’s smile told him that he was only halfway right. “I blamed them all for the longest time, and it didn’t do me any good.”

“So what then?” Jeremy pushed with a half frown because he could tell he was losing Gavin’s interest. “You gotta help me out here, man. Mind reading’s your job, not mine but I’m trying.” Clearly Gavin wasn’t keen on that, but he had never been particularly fond of being direct. “C’mon Gav. Just… just talk to me.” Gavin stared at him so blankly that you’d think he had never heard of such a concept before. Despite the situation, it almost made Jeremy smile. “Talk like I’m not even here. Someone made you a promise, and you believed them…”

It took him so long to take a breath that Jeremy very nearly threw in the towel and admitted defeat on this one. When Gavin finally did start talking, it felt as though he had moved mountains.


	2. Alchemy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: drug abuse, overdose, addiction
> 
> hope you're all enjoying!! comments and kudos massively appreciated <3

Before the name ‘Golden Boy’ carried any meaning at all, Gavin Free was a college student living off of his parents’ money with absolutely nothing at all to lose. He had his own studio apartment in the city, dressed in all designer and couldn’t recall the last class he had attended. He was notorious for his absences, but more so for his extravagant lifestyle. Not a week went by where Gavin didn’t roll out of bed hungover, or fall back into it high as a damn kite. He was loud-mouthed, obnoxious, a terrible influence and a whole lot a fun. ‘Mad, bad and dangerous to know’, his English major friends had branded him; shortly before their suspension that may or may not have stemmed from an illegal rave that Gavin had invited them to. To him, nothing mattered. He was virtually untouchable, funded by two upper class parents who lived miles away with little to no involvement in his messy and exciting life. And he liked it that way.

Everything had been perfect, until two terrible things happened in the winter of his second year.

“I’ve been in contact with your mother.” The college dean had said, keeping her teeth clenched to stop any honesty from flowing. She despised Gavin and he knew it, which made it all the more entertaining to come to these little meetings where they pointlessly discussed his place here; like it was ever in any jeopardy at all when his parents basically bank-rolled this place so long as he technically ‘studied’ in it.

“Oh good,” he grinned, swinging his legs lazily over the arm of his chair. An arrogant and languid pose that made his opposition seethe. “Any update on the chocolates I asked her to send? I can’t stomach all this American shite.”

“Mr Free,” she frowned, gripping her pen far too tightly as she watched the little smirk dance on his lips. “We discussed your class attendance; or, lack thereof. And I also mentioned to her that the college are becoming concerned about your… financial endeavours.”

“Christ, it was one time. I told my dealer not to meet me on campus anymore.”

“Regardless.” The dean said, and loosened somewhat. Gavin almost caught sight of a hint of smugness in her tone and it made him bristle. “She agreed with me.”

When she didn’t immediately elaborate, Gavin sighed and tilted his head forward. The frown on his face was disinterested, but he had always been a fantastic liar. He could easily conceal the worry that was rising. “Meaning?”

“Meaning that your parents have agreed to continue paying for your accommodation and groceries-“ she started, but Gavin swung his legs back around and leaned forwards to interrupt her in an absolute rage.

“They’re cutting me off?”

“- but anything else you require will have to come out of your own pocket.” She continued, and it didn’t even seem like she was trying to hide her giddiness any longer. It was the only win she had ever gotten over Gavin, and seeing him so incensed clearly pleased her. He couldn’t bring himself to focus on it.

“My own pocket? Is this a bloody joke?” He laughed, hysterical now in his anger. “I don’t have a job. I can’t even get a fucking job here!”

“I believe there’s a vacancy in the campus coffee shop.” The dean said over a conceited smile and that was when Gavin truly lost it.

“Fuck off.” He scoffed, rising from his seat with a piercing glare. “Next time you speak with mummy-dearest, tell her I’m dropping out. What will you do without my payroll, hm?” The disbelief on her face made him smirk. The regained power rushed right down his spine. This was what he needed, no matter the cost. “If I get cut off, you do too bitch.” Gavin spat, and he left the office in a huff without considering that it would be the last time he ever went there.

Later, he would grow to regret being so harsh with the dean. She was just doing a job after all, and he had never made it particularly easy on her. He would regret dropping out in the way that he did too, but as it turned out he never truly got to spend too much time on those particular life choices, because that very same evening he did something undeniably worse; something he could pinpoint easily now as the biggest mistake of his entire life.

Blinded by the rage of losing everything that had ever been his, unsure of who he would be without the money and what he could do without the life he would have to leave behind, Gavin did the only thing he could ever think to do. He went out to get royally fucked up, and deal with the fallout tomorrow. Only this time, he needed a high that he simply couldn’t get from soft drugs and alcohol.

It barely took any convincing at all to get the belt wrapped around his arm in the bathroom of his apartment, his dealer’s eyes glowing as he promised Gavin a feeling unlike any other. He wasn’t keen on the needle, but barely felt it slip in anyway. The self-destruction felt like winning. If his parents really thought that cutting him off would do him some good, then Gavin simply had to prove them wrong by spiralling utterly out of control. May as well have some fun while he did it.

And God was that first hit sensational.

When at first there was nothing, Gavin was about ready to demand his cash back from his ratty dealer and be done with all of this. Then his veins started to feel almost cold – and suddenly too hot. Then warm. Fuzzy and warm and perfect and his head rolled back with his eyes while the dealer loosened the belt on his arm and held him at his back.

“What’d I tell ya?” The man said in his grating, pompous voice and Gavin was sure he must have said something else too, but he sounded as though he were underwater. Normally he would never have let this scumbag touch him but with the warmth rushing through his veins, nothing at all mattered. Gavin felt a gleeful giggle rising up but he swallowed it and tried to remember how to lean forwards again.

When the world came back to him in a rush of sound, movement and colour, Gavin knew that he wanted to feel like this forever. It was euphoric, blissful and overwhelming. Even the typically infuriating sound of his dealer laughing made Gavin smile. Everything was going to be okay; it would be perfect, in fact. The world was spinning for him. The future was bright. In that moment, Gavin realised he had never been quite this happy in his entire life.

And no matter how much of that awful stuff he took in the weeks and months that followed, Gavin could never quite replicate the rush of that first high.

His doses grew as his bank account shrank. The last of the money that Gavin’s parents so graciously left him with was drying up, but he’d be damned if he was picking up their calls. At some point along the way, Gavin’s dealer stopped hitting him up. The man pulled some sympathetic bullshit insisting he was worried about him, so Gavin had to go elsewhere to get his fix from an even less savoury character than the first. The new guy was a nasty piece of work, but he didn’t give a shit how much Gavin was taking so long as he got his payments on time. At first, that hadn’t been a problem.

Throughout it all, Gavin would have liked to think he kept himself relatively well presented. Long sleeves to cover the bruising on his arms from repeated needles, a spread of concealer beneath both eyes and a bottle of bleach for his hair. He was the flashy kind of heroin user, not a messy addict, not by any means. As far as he was concerned, he barely looked like a user at all; unless you caught him on the comedown, breathing so slowly he might have been dead and fast asleep for upwards of eighteen hours at a time. Those were not the finer moments. Still, chasing the high felt worth it every single time.

But when the cash ran out, it almost killed him.

The first time Gavin checked his bank account and realised he was running on empty, it almost felt like relief. Now, finally, he would have to come off of this stuff. He could handle the withdrawal simply because there was no other choice. It was a hard reset and he honestly felt as though he was about to get his life back.

And on the very same night, Gavin found himself pounding on his dealer’s door in a frenzied panic. Too hot and too cold, his own rapping against the wood was too loud but he couldn’t remember how to stop moving his hands. He felt drenched, sweat dripping down his face but his mouth was dry as the fucking Sahara. Breathing made his throat hurt. The streetlights were too bright but the shadows were too dark. For a minute the nausea was overwhelming, but throwing up wasn’t an option given he had already emptied his stomach after hours of gagging over the toilet before he got here. He didn’t stop knocking, not until the door swung open and even then, Gavin couldn’t lower his hand. Instead, he grabbed blindly onto the collar of his dealer’s shirt.

“You need to hit me up right fucking now-“ he was rambling, pushing the man further inside the house because they couldn’t do a damn thing out here and Gavin wasn’t waiting a single second longer than what was necessary.

“Get your fucking hand off of me,” the man grumbled, giving Gavin a one handed shove that threw him completely off balance and left him on his back on the ground. This guy was stoic and irritated in the face of Gavin’s blatant panic, and it made him realise for the first time just how much bigger he was. How much stronger. While Gavin tried to find the strength in his aching bones to scoop himself up from the floor, the dealer looked down on him in some horrible mix of disappointment and disgust. “Should never have told you where I’m at. I thought maybe you weren’t as twitchy as the rest of ‘em.” When the man signalled for him to get up and follow him, Gavin noticed the gun in his hand for the first time since he’d got here. It must have been obvious, the way he fixated on it, because the dealer laughed and waved the weapon at him. “You come screaming at my door at 4am, you gotta expect this much, at least. Lucky I didn’t put one through your skull the second you went for me. Now hurry up.”

Trying to focus on the high that was ahead of him, Gavin dragged himself into a small, dingy kitchen and collapsed into the world’s least comfortable dining chair. If he was feeling himself, he would never have touched anything in this place with a ten foot pole. It was beneath him; or, it should have been. Right now Gavin had never been more desperate.

Clearly taking at least a little pity on the way that his hands shook, the dealer fixed a belt around Gavin’s arm for him and went about setting him up with the fix he was dying for. The anticipation made the withdrawal a thousand times worse until Gavin couldn’t sit still. “Cash.” The man demanded, and everything shattered.

Gavin made the most pitiful sound he had ever heard himself make. “Tomorrow. Please. My wallet is…” Empty. “At home. Please, mate.” But the dealer was already packing away. “No, no come on! Have I ever missed a payment? Don’t fucking do this to me, not right now, not now-“ before he could continue begging in a way that he had never begged for anything in his goddamn life, the man was grabbing him by his face and a bruising grip. Even as he was held, Gavin’s legs kept bouncing with a mind of their own. He didn’t even feel scared. The desperation left no room for anything else.

“You fucking listen to me.” He said, raising the syringe way to close to Gavin’s eyes. “I’ll stick you with this.” It was way too much, more than he had ever taken at once before, but his body yearned for it so intensely that he groaned for it. “We’ll go back to your apartment right now, and you’ll cover it.” He was nodding enthusiastically, knowing full well that he had nothing to offer. It didn’t matter. Gavin watched with tears rolling down his face as the man pushed that needle too hard into his arm, drained it. “If this doesn’t kill you, I fucking will.” He heard, but it was too late by then anyway.

\---

After spending around three days in and out of a drug induced coma, Gavin had signed his apartment over to his dealer to cover his debt. He sold his phone and most of his clothes in an attempt to raise the cash for a new place to stay, but when the going got tough he spent all of that on the drugs too. Sleeping on the streets wasn’t so bad so long as he had enough heroin to knock him out for a good few days at a time. In the limited time that he spent awake, Gavin tried his best to eat. Maybe wash, if he could.

Mostly though, he just looked for the next place to hide and hit up in.

In the end, maybe those months spent with nothing were worth it after all. It was how he found himself in the right place at the right time, prepping a needle in a back alley and happening to overhear something that would change his pitiful life forever.

“I’ve told him to fuck off more times than I can count.” Someone was saying not far away, and Gavin ducked behind some boxes cursing himself for not scoping out the area before he settled. “He’s a stupid kid in way over his head. But I don’t want him selling that shit on my turf. That’s all kinds of trouble.”

“And I’ve told _you_ more times than I can count,” another voice said, this one a little lighter and more feminine in pitch but not without frustration. “We’ve got people all over this city who could take care of it for you very easily if you’d just make the call.”

“Fucking Christ Jack,” the man groaned. “I’m not asking somebody to _kill_ this dumb fucking kid.” Their voices were getting closer now, and Gavin tried his very best to make himself small and somehow put on a brave face at the same time. He had always been a phenomenal actor, but he hadn’t needed to lie for a long while. He’d barely even had to talk.

“So why are we having this conversation again?” The woman grumbled, disinterested and annoyed now. They were close enough that Gavin had to hold his breath for fear of them hearing him. On the ground at their feet. Pathetic little thing that he was, he could only hope that they might turn a blind eye. If he could just plunge the needle in now, maybe the drowsiness would hit him just well enough that they’d believe he was already dead anyway.

It took the man a moment to respond. “I just need someone to knock a scare into him. But I don’t want his blood on my hands, you know? Marty’s an idiot, but he’s still a kid.”

‘Marty’. Gavin scoured his drowsy brain for where he knew that name, and why it was raising so many red flags.

“No idea where he’s based, so I guess we have to find him first. I just wanna make sure he understands what’s going to happen if he keeps selling that shit on my land. And if we can, find out who the fuck gave him heroin in the first place.”

Marty. Marty who sells heroin. Gavin’s first ever dealer. Marty who got him hooked on this shit in the first place, who fucked up his entire life, and who could burn in hell for all that he cared.

“Marty McAdams?” Gavin spoke before he had time to consider even the short term consequences of opening his stupid mouth.Before the name had even made it all the way from his lips, he had been grabbed and hoisted to his feet. The brick wall hit his back insistently and he felt his bones shift angrily in protest. He tried not to cringe. “Ow,” he mumbled, and opened his eyes without realising he had ever squeezed them shut.

And holy shit.

Pressing him up against the wall with a face like thunder hidden only by a few loose strands of dark ginger hair was Jack from the fucking Fake AH Crew. At her back, the Kingpin. What the fuck had he done.

He knew he was a little rusty, and his face must have given away the initial spark of fear, but once Gavin’s mind caught up with the situation he managed to black the emotions out.

“Five seconds to start fucking talking.” Geoff Ramsey told him, reaching for a gun not even concealed at his belt.

“I was talking,” Gavin argued. His tone was a little weaker than he would have liked, but bratty and certain nonetheless. It gave both of them pause, which elicited the little rush of power that he needed to go on. “You interrupted. I know where Marty McAdams lives; or at least, where he definitely lived a couple months ago.”

“Where.” Jack shook him, hitting the back of his head against the wall so that Gavin had to supress a groan if he hoped to keep up the put-together façade.

“Well I’ll tell you,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut tight against the ache in his head. “I’m willing to negotiate a price.”

Jack scoffed and the Kingpin outright laughed at him. “Alright,” she hummed over a deceitfully polite smile. “If you tell me, I won’t kill you. Negotiation over. How’s your life for a price?”

“Not worth it,” Gavin countered instantly. They certainly weren’t laughing at him anymore. Jack kept up her harsh, cold demeanour but Geoff; well, Geoff looked like he was seeing Gavin for the first time. Really seeing him, and the terrible state that he was in. Gavin felt his skin crawl at the humiliating thought of his pity.

“What’s your price then, kid?” Ramsey said, with something like sympathy in his tone.

Well, shit. Doped up as he was, Gavin couldn’t have possibly thought that far ahead. What was the going price for information? He hadn’t a goddamn clue. “A thousand.” He said, and thanked the heavens for the false confidence he managed to display.

“A thousand dollars?” Jack growled, but the falseness in her tough act was beginning to show. Making way for the sympathy she couldn’t help herself from feeling. “Do you know who you’re messing with?”

“I know you can afford it,” Gavin argued through gritted teeth, growing quite tired of fighting this battle and quickly finding that actually, he wasn’t all that scared of the Fakes at all. No, what bothered him the most about this situation was the horribly sad look in Geoff Ramsey’s eyes. It was mortifying to be looked at like that. Gavin had once been royalty in his own mind, and now he was nothing but an abandoned puppy in a dirty back alley, living off of heroin but barely living at all.

“Put him down,” Geoff said, and while Jack hesitated for a moment she followed his orders eventually. Gavin had to work pretty hard not to stumble and fall once he wasn’t being held. “A thousand?” In response, Gavin nodded with a little more hesitance than he would have liked. “… Alright. Not like we’ll miss it.”

Though he wasn’t entirely certain what the Fakes had done with his information, Gavin never heard the name Marty McAdams again. Unsure of what to do with his newfound fortune, Gavin had impulsively booked a luscious hotel room for the night, enjoyed even just a semblance of the life that he used to know, and of course, blew through the majority of his remaining cash on drugs. The next day he spent his last $250 on a pair of golden aviators and skipped his regular morning dose. It made his fingertips itch and his stomach turn, but he needed to stay alert for at least a couple of hours. He needed to listen. Gavin had learnt something pivotal completely by accident and if he could just stay clean for a couple of hours a day, then he figured he might really be onto something.

Nobody paid any mind to what they were revealing in front of a sickly little addict hiding away behind dumpsters and boxes. Gavin was practically invisible. If he picked his locations correctly, it was his greatest asset.

Within a matter of days, Gavin had more damning information on local gangs and criminals than he even knew what to do with. He knew where mob bosses lived and where their children went to school. He found out where the Fakes bought their weapons and he knew that they were frankly getting a shitty deal on them too. With enough hanging around, Gavin even managed to discover where his own dealer kept his stock and promptly decided never to sell that particular secret, no matter the price.

With all that he knew now, Gavin was quite possibly one of the most powerful people in this damn city; but he still slept on the streets and flirted with an overdose every other day. Understandably then, it took some time to build himself a reputation as a reliable source of secrets. His first couple of sales were meagre things. A couple hundred dollars here and there. As much as he might have wanted to, Gavin was hardly in a position to turn it down. At the end of the day, it was enough for all the food and drugs he needed, sometimes a bed for the night, and eventually, a phone. It was the phone that changed everything. That line of communication turned him from the oasis you stumble upon on the brink of dehydration to the luxury champagne you call upon, and pay big money to drink. Once a couple of connections had his number, it spread. Gavin was running a small fucking business of secrets out of bars and hotel rooms and when he eventually accumulated enough of a steady income to buy himself a place to live, he spent it on a top floor office space instead. He didn’t need it, but it felt like a power move to own it anyway. They called him the Golden Boy, on account of his sunglasses and jewellery at first but he liked to think that his trade was more valuable than that. Gavin was influential, he was known, and God it was the closest to his first high than he had ever gotten since.

Of course, it was a dangerous business he had buried himself into, and being renowned within it came with challenges of its own. His dealer cut him off completely, citing concern over Gavin’s involvement with too many big hitters in the industry. Hiding in back alleys and waiting for secrets wasn’t cutting it anymore. Once Gavin was without need for extra cash, he started to trade intel for intel. Share a secret and receive one in return, until he knew more than any one person had ever known about the underbelly of this city. Gavin could orchestrate and execute a gang war of disastrous proportions if he so pleased, but he was quite content with what he had. With a strict policy of absolutely no allies, he sold information on everyone. It had gotten him throttled and threatened more times than he could count but nobody would dare to damage him permanently; so long as he was still on their side when they paid him right, that is. They couldn’t shoot the messenger, because there would always come a time when they needed what he knew.

And if he organised the occasional late night trip to his old dealer’s lock up in order to feed his addiction, then there would be nothing the guy could do about it that wouldn’t put him on some seriously high profile hit lists anyway.

Waking up one evening sprawled on his office couch and with a belt still loosely circling his arm, Gavin figured he might have taken that dose just a little too far. He checked his phone. 206 missed calls. Wednesday. The last he remembered it had been Monday afternoon. Fuck, what was that buzzing?

Intercom. Wednesday evening. Meeting.

He stumbled to the door in a daze and pressed the button. “If you don’t have food,” he started, voice a little hoarse but otherwise confident as ever. “I’d recommend turning back now.”

“Where the fuck have you been, dude!?” Alfredo Diaz growled at him angrily over the speaker. His tone made Gavin’s head hurt.

“Food.” Gavin demanded again.

“We have coffee,” Jack’s voice told him, far more pleasant and with good news nonetheless.

“Good enough. I’ll buzz you up; be with you in a sec.” Pressing the button that cleared them to enter, Gavin used the time they would be in the elevator to clean up the evidence of his drug-induced coma. He dashed to the bathroom, changed and cleaned himself up as much as possible. Even when he was at his very worst with the heroin, Gavin felt he had always done a fairly decent job of keeping up appearances. Sure, there were a few months there were it wasn’t at all possible, but now? With his too tired eyes hidden behind classic golden shades, the permanent bruising and needle holes on his arms covered by silk blue shirts, and his wrists and neck decorated with gold, well damn, he had never looked better.

Emerging back to his office to find Jack and Alfredo waiting impatiently was kind of gratifying, and it showed in the way Gavin sauntered to his desk with a winning smile.

“Hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long.”

“You’re playin’ right now?” Alfredo said through gritted teeth. He was so very easy to rile up, and it was an absolute treat every time. “The boss has been calling you for _days_.”

Oh. That wasn’t a great look. And not the first time one of these little disappearances of his had happened, either. Gavin propped his elbows up on the desk and rested his chin on the backs of his hands. “Him and just about every other gang boss in this city. But why?” He quirked an eyebrow. Ever expressive. “We agreed to meet today weeks ago. Where is he anyway?”

“He wanted to brief you before we came here,” Jack explained, a perfectly calm counter to Alfredo’s aggression. Maybe this good cop, bad cop act worked on some people, but Gavin had it figured out before they’d walked through the damn door. Jack was comforting, but he would never let his guard down for anybody. Least of all Fakes.

“Not necessary,” he insisted with the beginnings of a frown. “I think I’m pretty capable of figuring out what you need without a briefing days in advance. Where’s Geoff?”

“Where were _you_?” Alfredo countered, and though his anger had been fun at first it was becoming quite tedious now.

“Busy.” Gavin said and tried not to glare.

“Bullshit.”

“Alfredo,” Jack warned, but she didn’t try any harder than that.

“You were here. Doped out of your goddamn mind again. Am I wrong?” Gavin was damn good, but he wasn’t good enough not to twitch at having the truth laid out in front of him. If there was anything in the world that got under his skin, it was the one thing he wasn’t willing to face. His addiction was humiliating. Alfredo was degrading him by even daring to mention it. And if Gavin’s face hadn’t given it away, then the awful silence in the room gave him every answer he needed. “Holy shit, I’m right. You’re still on that? This is why you do this? Go AWOL for days at a time?”

Trying to remain unperturbed, Gavin opened up his laptop and diverted his attention from them. “Why are you here?” He said, fingers tapping nosily against keys. His refusal to give a direct response infuriated Alfredo, so he had won that at least. “And for the last bloody time, _where_ is Geoff?”

“He’s damn busy,” Alfredo yelled. “This might come as a fuckin’ surprise to you, but not everybody’s lives revolve around you.”

“You know this is funny. I almost thought you guys were here asking for my help,” Gavin set his jaw firmly in a rare tick of genuine annoyance, but he didn’t return his full attention to them yet. They hadn’t earnt it.

“We are,” Jack insisted, with a pointed glare in Alfredo’s direction. He merely scoffed and turned his back on them, pretending to be interested in Gavin’s sparse bookshelves just to remove himself from the conversation. He had taken his tough guy act too far and everybody in the room knew it. “I’m sorry, Gavin.” As Jack took a seat in front of him, Gavin figured that the apology was probably good enough. He flicked his eyes back away from the screen as a sign of his forgiveness. “Geoff needs you on board to consult on a job.” That was par for the course. No reason to come all the way up here and discuss it face to face, so there was definitely more to be said. Gavin leaned back and raised an eyebrow. “And he listened to your advice last time – about the shitty deal we’ve been cut on the weapons?”

Gavin laughed. “Worst I’ve ever seen, Jack. It’s embarrassing.”

“Between you and me,” she said with a hushed tone and a cheeky grin. “I’ve been telling him the same for years.” Gavin giggled right along with her, and figured that it was a very smart play from Geoff, sending Jack up here to see him. She was easily the most agreeable of his little gang of misfits. He actually quite genuinely liked her, but it meant nothing in business terms. “Anyway, I guess he trusted it more coming from you, because he’s finally deciding to do something about it. He wants you to lead the negotiations on our behalf.”

Talking to Jack was just so easy that if Gavin were of weaker resolve, he would have simply nodded along and added that job to his to-do list. Unfortunately for them, he was five steps ahead of everything at all times; he had to be, to survive. And this had trouble written all over it. It compromised his primary rule, the one that made him such a dangerous threat and valuable ally in the first place. Gavin couldn’t risk that. There wasn’t any amount of money in the world that would make it worth it.

“Well I’m flattered,” he said, and he could tell by Jack’s frown that she knew she had lost him. “But I don’t work crew jobs. Not my line of business.” Really, for Geoff to even consider asking this of him, Gavin knew he had made a misstep. He never should have allowed the Fakes to grow so comfortable with him. Next thing he knew they would be running around calling him their _ally_ and that word may well get him killed. Best put an end to it right here, right now. Gavin was masterful when it came to pushing the wrong buttons, pushing people away. “Do you think of us as friends, Jack?” He said, cutting her off mid-sentence, though he hadn’t been listening to what she was saying anyway. Some attempt at convincing him, he could assume. A waste of time.

She only frowned at him at first. “I’d like to think that we’re more than colleagues.”

Gavin smiled at her like she was something pitiful, and felt Alfredo’s protective glare burning into his skin. Too easy. “Well then I’m sorry to have to tell you that we’re not even that.” Jack tried very hard not to be affected by that; not hard enough to evade Gavin’s notice. “I sold the address of your last safe-house for a million dollars and a handful of secrets.” She almost gasped aloud and Alfredo visibly bristled. “I probably would have done it for half that. I wasn’t sure that you’d all make it out alive, and the more I thought about it the more I found that I really didn’t care.”

“Gavin, cut all this cold bullshit-“ Jack tried to interrupt him, voice sad and smooth as butter but he didn’t allow her to go on.

He didn’t feel bad about this. Not one bit. The tug at his heart wasn’t coming from the dejected look in her eyes; probably just an after-shock of his overdose.

“I’m telling you this to help you, Jack. I wouldn’t want you to give you a false impression. If you honestly feel safe here, then it’s time to revaluate.”

“So what’s it gonna take?” Jack was asking him suddenly, and for the first time since he had moved away Gavin actually decided to spare a look at Alfredo. What he found was far from the rage he was expecting. He looked desperate. Gnawing at his bottom lip with a soft kind of frustration in his eyes. Gavin suddenly wasn’t quite sure which face he should be wearing today. “We’re telling you we need you. We’re inviting you to our home. To our family. And you’re, what? Saying no?”

Gavin let out a quiet sigh and leaned back into his chair; away from the anguish. “That’s what I said. Do you honestly think you’re the first crew to try getting me on side? Pretty much everybody in this city either wants me permanently handcuffed to them or dead. I can’t imagine you have much to offer.”

“But that’s exactly it you moron,” Alfredo groaned. “We are offering you more than that. Geoff doesn’t want you so he can lock you up and throw away the key; and we wouldn’t let any fucker come for you. You would be a Fake, through and through. You’d have people who care about you Gav, don’t you want that?”

“Spare me the theatrics,” Gavin rolled his eyes and ignored the way his heart leapt at the thought that anyone could genuinely care about him again. That notion was left long in the past. “I’m a solo act. No exceptions.”

For the briefest moment, they were quiet. Gavin thought that they might finally be accepting defeat, and just when he was about to celebrate, Alfredo piped up again. “How much? Millions?”

Gavin smiled languidly. “Far more.”

Jack was rising from her seat in a conceding huff, but her partner continued, even as she made for the door. “We can you tell you where your dealer’s warehouse is.”

“Hm. Anything I don’t know?” Gavin laughed, delighted as he heard the door open, watched Jack stare painfully at Alfredo’s fruitless efforts.

“Alright. The Rose,” one of the city’s most sought-after assassins. “I can tell you his real name.”

“Alfredo!” Jack cried, urgency and utter disbelief in her tone. He didn’t even glance at her. His gaze was fixed on Gavin, awaiting his next move as the tension danced around them in the air. Gavin let it hang there for a while.

“And I could tell you his home address.” He said plainly. They both gawked, but they should have been more certain of who they were dealing with here. “Bye now.”

It took him a long time to leave, so long that Gavin turned back to his laptop and continued working; so he didn’t notice Alfredo’s approach until he was right in front of him, hiking up the sleeve of his shirt and exposing the deepest of his needle-bruising.

“You need help, Gavin. You need friends,” he said, as Gavin yanked himself away and tried to supress a squawk. When he started to speak again, Alfredo seemed too hesitant for the bold stunt he had just pulled, like he wasn’t even sure if he should be carrying on like this at all. The uncertainty didn’t suit him. “If you were with us… with everything that you know… Gav, I wouldn’t even question shit. I’d fire on your call every single time. I could promise you that. Easy… So when you’re done with this shit,” he indicated the arm that Gavin was still desperately trying to hide, though the exposure could not be undone. “And when you need us… just call.”

Gavin wanted to say something witty. Something clever that would stick with them, make them think twice about just how much he ‘needed’ anybody else, but by the time his voice remembered the way to his lips, the Fakes were long gone. It was dark out, and Gavin felt the itch to forget.


End file.
